This chapter examines another type of antireductionist argument and its consequences. It first identifies the problem concerning mental functions such as reasoning, thought, and evaluation that are limited to humans. It questions whether a person’s cognitive capacities can be placed in the framework of an evolutionary theory that is no longer exclusive but still retains the Darwinian structure. It then shows ways of thinking about the basic reasoning capacities and studies the faculty that allows people to escape from the world of appearance that is presented by their prereflective innate dispositions, and move into the world of objective reality. This chapter also takes a look at teleological principles as part of the natural order and lists some alternatives.

[I have no idea where this reply will go. It is not meant as an interjection into the debate of binra and Norm: it’s my take on the Sam Harris and Bruce Hood videos posted.]

Hood ends with the injunction “Humanity is a super-social species that needs the self”: Harris ends with “When you lose your experience of unitary consciousness, it brings you into a closer experience of how we (neuroscientists) think things are” (both paraphrased).

What Harris does not say, yet can be strongly inferred, is that experience is epistemically, metaphysically and ontologically nondual. For me, these dispositions (of Hood and Harris) encapsulate the broader post-Kuhnian debate that cognititive neuroscience is forced to consider …that brings the very objective epistemological (logico-empirical) grounds of science into question. This, for me, begs the question: are scientists, philosophers, and psychologists – who, as elitist vested interest groups are monolithically Cartesian materialists – the ones who should be having the debate?

The outcome of such a debate is likely to effect the course of humanity for centuries: in the way that the Cartesian materialist (capitalist) values of the anglo-american Enlightenment Project already have. What is brought into question is the very foundationalism and essentialism of human knowledge: which is still strictly dominated by the Cartesian Absolute. This hard determinism has been softening – thanks to the likes of Kuhn and Nagel – who recognised the limitations of an ideologically funded, dominant culturally responsible (by those who owe their status, intellectual allegiance and moral responsibility to the dominant cultural power, that is) …who become, in effect, a socially censored and closeted elite vested interest group – ie ‘scientists’. This effects their ability to do socially responsible science (see also Lewontin and Jay-Gould). OK, I might have leveraged Kuhn and Nagel a little: but they did point out that science was unable to cope with the subjectivity of the scientist – so their science was not ‘pure’ (logico-posivitist) science – but relative to our psycho-linguistic theories and understanding of ourselves.

[I might have added the bit about power]

Notice that human subjectivity is still considered ‘impure’ (tainted by emotion). What Harris would not say, but can be strongly inferred, is that the first person experiential (subjective) viewpoint is a priori viewed unscientific. A science without humanity? And a science without humanity can become a dictatorial tyranny of scientism and technocracy?

So is science defunct as a liberational tool? Not at all. As Rupert Sheldrake has said: science freed from the tyranny of Cartesian objectivity is a humanitarian science liberated. (My words, his sentiment). Fortunately, not all scientists are Cartesian monoliths.

Growing out of the nascent cultural crossover of cognitive science and Buddhism are exciting developments such as ‘neurophenomonology’ …which are at least open-minded to interpreting the science as science: and not imposing outmoded 17th century interpretative conceptual paradigms and a dualist Absolutism upon it.

Neurophenomonology and embodied cognition require a new paradigm and Philosophy of Mind: which have profound implications for the coming millenium. Do we want an encultured disembodied mind; isolated from the pre-given ‘in-itself’ ( en-soi) objective phenomenological ground; incomplete and not fully knowable to Self or Other …because these are the consequences for a universal humanity that are being decided: not necessarily with humanities inclusion or consent.

I do not single out Bruce Hood, because his disposition is neo-universal (and not limited to scientists – it is the common Folk psychology). That we may be condemned to retain a self we no longer have an evolutionary utility for: and we ‘scientifically’ know is an imaginal illusion is illogical. Just as it is illogical for the Cartesian materialist ‘scientist’ to undermine their entire training and embrace the logic of freedom. This is the cultural antimony.

However much science is required to include the first person experiential (and the likes of Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch, and Anil Seth – to name a few – already are) …there is another long overlooked source of the first person experiential – ours.

Consciousness is ours to evolve. Science is a useful adjunct: which can, at the same time, unfortunately be leveraged into a dictatorial tyranny. Buddhist phenomonology is a non-partisan, anti-sectarian ‘science’ of mind to end all psycho-linguistic tyrannies. It is the liberational praxis of the non-conceptual, non-dual sate that Sam Harris can affirm as closer to the experiential: but cannot provide an enactivism for. The modern debate is, in fact, 2,500 years old …science is playing catch-up. The effects of a nondual non-conceptual universally humanitarian consciousness are profoundly non- and anti-scientific. Can it be left to vested interest groups whose very foundations of knowledge are being challenged to lead the debate? Or decide its outcome? I think not: there is too much at stake.

“That we may be condemned to retain a self we no longer have an evolutionary utility for: and we ‘scientifically’ know is an imaginal illusion is illogical. Just as it is illogical for the Cartesian materialist ‘scientist’ to undermine their entire training and embrace the logic of freedom.”

Indeed. Although in qualitative terms, we may be unable to substantially modify the pre-conceptual aspects of perception, that is, the manner of integrated sense perceptions as such, which may be, so to speak, hard wired into us, nevertheless, the cultural reflexive overlay that also and indubitably conditions the seeming ‘transparency’ of what appears to us to be the “direct revelation of reality” inherent to our perceptions can certainly be changed and deliberately so, as psycho-linguistic interpretation is accessible to ‘relfection’ and ‘critique’ and, therefore, to intentional cultural modification. In other words, self-consciousness, the experience of “me” and “I,” as “we” experience it under the influence of our cultures’ dominant ontologies and metaphysics is in fact modifiable to the degree that concepts or beliefs inform that experience. In other words, as Sam Harris and others aver, the subjective experience of humans is tunable on a scale that extends from hyper-egocentrism to a sensibility shorn the ego, of the “me,” of the “I.” And if that is in fact true and that these sensibilities are products of enculturation, then we can strive to educate ourselves into one or another kind of sensibility settling somewhere on this scale of possibilities.

[This comment was previously posted 01/09/18: this is a reply to Norm]

Thomas Metzinger frames the key question: “Will we be able to navigate through this, between cynical materialism and fundamentalism?” In the earlier video, he frames another key question: “Whose will is it anyway?” His conceptual thinking seems to come from very much inside the authoritarian Cartesian materialist ‘box’ …a ‘box’ or ‘container’ (conceptual structural framework) that a more radical interpretation of the same data set evaporates away.

He mentions Buddhism, but is clearly not a Buddhist: yet neither are the core teachings of Buddhism the sole intellectual property of the Buddha and Buddhists [that is a Western Cartesian capitalist ‘property rights’ categorisation] – they constitute and contribute to a universal humanitarian knowledge that cannot be ‘boxed’, still less ‘contained’ …or even less ‘controlled’. They offer a radically altered conceptual structural framework to interpret the same data set …from self to selflessness.

This brings me back to my key contention: do we allow a rigid scientific or philosophical determination of a potentially selfless humanitarian consciousness into something that may be alterable from the outside – a technochratic scientifically-designed Huxleyian dystopia – or do we take upon ourselves the (hallucinated) agency of our own potentially selfless-determination?

Metzinger seems well aware of the military or authoritarian capture of consciousness control (the consequences of which are unconscionable and need no further contemplation): but seems unaware that the seeds of a permanent solution to authoritarian capture – a universal humanity in a federated community of equals – are also predicated by the radical re-interpretation of the same facts. So, whose will is it anyway?

I cannot answer without referring to the core teaching of the Buddha – pratitya samutpada – as presented in the Mulamadhyamakakarika by Nagarjuna. The Folk metaphysic is that the object of my present consciousness is independently existing (en-soi or in-itself) and ‘my’ (pour-soi) consciousness represents both the object and my reflexive self-awareness back to me (Husserl’s ‘reflective arc’). Pratitya samutpada says object and consciousness are “co-dependently arising”. Cognitive neuroscience, at least when the likes of Francisco Varela interpreted it, agrees.

The philosophical implications are enormous: seemingly way beyond the ken of Metzinger …if followed through – there is no authoritarian box left to contain our common humanity. The absolutised structural framework of the hierarchical self-cage ceases to have its authoritarian rigidity; and loses its ontological containment possibility. Pratitya samutpada shows us that all ‘independent’ and Kantian ‘in-itself’ (en-soi) phenomena are in fact interdependent, inter-penetrative, and co-mutually existent. Which of course, includes Being – which Thich Nhat Hanh has beautifully reframed as ‘interbeing’ …I am that you are (and dialectically vice versa).

Expand from this foundation and we have the core philosophy of mutual aid and interdependence …a universal humanity and will to the people to end all categories of identitarian sectarianism, authoritarianism, and the instrumental agency over Nature: all the ultimate manifestations of the ‘hallucinated’ Cartesian will.

This is the briefest sketch of radical humanitarian interpretation of what the neuroscience seems to be confirming (to be clear, it does not matter whether science does or does not confirm Buddhist phenomenology – which is, in effect, a liberational heuristic conceptual system, that has stood the test of time with or without the scientific verification). To consider the interpretation from inside our common consensual Cartesian box – the capitalist recapture and recuperation, if you will: I must look at Metzinger’s key contention that the will (an aspect of the self) is “hallucinated” and therefore an ”illusion”.

I wish you had not picked a German, because other psychologist/philosopher’s are saying this (Hood and Harris’ interpretation alludes; Dennet’s, Pinker’s, Dawkin’s and Peterson’s are more explicit) …but here is a potential emergence of nascent consciousness eugenicism. To prevent this: we need to reclaim the language. We need to separate the conventional from the prajnaparamita perfection of wisdom: where the self is indeed illusory and ‘hallucinated’ experiential gestalt. Human will and agency can be said to ‘exist’ as part of our experiential wisdom: whether that is ultimately metaphoric or not.

To construct a conceptual framework of ‘no-self’, or the ‘self-illusion’, or still worse: the ‘self-hallucination’ – is dangerous beyond the extreme. It is the greatest tool power could ever create: which is why we need the humanitarian approach …an approach which Buddhism is founded on: which could be the transcendent (selfless) humanitarian cultural lens the neuroscience should be interpreted through?

In Cartesian semantics: the very nature of the language is binary – one polar concept is given meaning only by its binary opposite. The concept of ‘no-self’, for instance, is not the negation of ‘self’: but its perpetuation (Absolutisation)…certainly in the conceptualisation of Metzinger, Harris, and Hook et al. This is the same trap that phenomenology, philosophy, and science have been falling into for around a century now. To use one of Bruce Hook’s concepts: we realise we have come to the “neural edge” of our self-imposed limits of knowledge: an imaginal boundary our very way of conceptualising cannot cross. We rebound back into the Cartesian Absolute: and even contend that we are stuck with the concept of self we cannot seem to shed. Or worse, consign it to hallucinatory annihilation.

To evolve beyond the Cartesian ‘neural edge’ of our own self-limiting conceptualisation: Nagarjuna proposes the middle way …to free our universal humanity from the tyranny of polar absolutes. He proposes an alterity of consciousness that neither affirms nor denies the self: and recognises that it is neither fully objective, nor fully subjective (oppositional binary absolutism) but fully sunyata (‘empty’ or ‘selfless’), humanitarian and experiential. A true ‘self’ that is equally informed by its own subjectivity and relative objectivity – the experiential ‘selfless-self’ (though I must be incredibly circumspect in trying to define the non-conceptual and nondual …in this respect, ontology becomes absolutising metaphysical mythology).

From the secular point of view: Lakoff and Johnson have done the legwork in “Philosophy in the Flesh” …where they propose an ’embodied realism’ that uses the self as a conventional metaphor. This is a secular psycho-linguistic ‘middle way’. It makes little sense to say “I am you” and our realities are inter-penetrative and inter-dependent …even though that might be closer to the truth. Or to posit that there is neither time nor distance between us: true, but time and distance are damn good metaphors to explain your lack of proximity to ‘me’! The philosophical question is: “Do we control the language, or do we let the language control and define us”?

As for will: if not to the illusory self, whose will is it? A humanitarian interpretation would be that it is the peoples …if we ever develop a communal community consensus reality? If not the will to self: rather than treat it as ‘hallucinatory’ (with all the negative ramifications that entails) …the will to selflessness becomes the will to the community of mutual aid. Humanity inherits its own autonomous agency? It does not potentially ‘hallucinate’ it away (the potential ideological re-interpretation inherent in Metzinger’s viewpoint. To be clear, I am not saying that Metzinger himself is such an ideologue …but it is not hard to see how his views could be spun?)

Does that mean that ‘my’ identity is subsumed and ‘I’ am ‘lost’as part of the ‘Borg collective’: or am ‘I’ just socially conscious and radically responsible? If all experience is interdependent: just whose experience is it anyway …is it not in reality already shared and communal? It needs only to be interpreted in that way: not framed into nihilistic non-existence by the Cartesian Absolutist dictatorship of the scientific machine-mind?

As to the degree of ‘my’ autonomy: that rather depends on the collective community autonomy and self-determination and my participatory democratic rights within it? Do ‘I’ have ‘my’ full say? In this light, we’ve seen what cynical materialism can do; we know what totalitarian fundamentalism can do; but we have no real idea what mutual aid and collective communal social responsibility can do …yet? Given the ‘humanitarian bottleneck’, with which I fully concur with Metzinger we are already facing: it’s selfless mutual aid or barbarism.

I’d like to say it is the obvious solution: but we have shown little rational behaviour in the last 4,000 years …philosophy has a lot to answer for! At 57 minutes past the eleventh hour: can we evolve a radically humanitarian philosophy? Can militant Cartesian materialists – working in elite special interest classes – exchange dualism for the non-conceptual and nondual? Only if they/we are willing to interpret the neuroscientific data with the (nondual) radical openness that the data itself suggests. This requires a radically new humanitarian science. And a radically new universal humanity.

It is my hope the unconscionable consequences of a continued mechano-materialist-dualist dictatorship of mind will sway the debate toward a new selfless humanitarian Will and Reason …that sweep aside the evolutionary redundant Cartesian machine-age equivalents. From this juncture, it is hard to say that with any real conviction: but where there is the evolutionary universal humanitarian Will …there is a Way …

A lot to unpack and to think about and with which to familiarize myself in terms of the literature and authors to which you refer. Consequently, I can’t respond to all of the points and relevant implications you broach.

Pertaining to Metzinger, only a recent find for me, I agree — I think — with all of your contentions.

I certainly also perceive him to be part of what your refer to as the scientific “elitist vested interest groups who are monolithically Cartesian materialists [and, on account of their Cartesianism, implicit authoratarians].’

My reason for posting his ‘findings’ is that the results of the investigations he discusses confront us with strong reasons for accepting the thesis of the inseperabality of mind and body, for discarding both the Cartesian duality of the mind and body, and its crass materialism, which, by the way, also happens to be the same (billiard-ball) materialism to which most so-called and self-identifying “believers” or “spiritualists” subscribe.

As for the ‘hallucinated will,’ the experiment that “proves” or demonstrates that human intentionality can in fact be hallucinated, also “proves” the reality of a human intentionaltiy that is in fact not hallucinated: namely, that you could not conduct such an experiment unless the ‘set-up’ was itself “intentionally” contrived.

The upshot of the ‘hallucinated will’ experimen (sic) (as well as the others Metzinger brings to our attention), for me, then, isn’t that ‘human intentionality’ is ‘always hallucinatory,’ but rather that ‘phenomenoligcal transparency‘ is often not what it appears to be.

And yes, of course, these investigations underscore a human vulnerablility that we must collectively learn to guard against: that we are subject to being manipulated in our ‘intentionality’ in ways more subtle than previously imagined.

Knowledge can be liberating, but it can also (as we all know and as is always the case in societies ruled by a power elite) be leveraged in the service of, to borrow your very apt phrase, authoritarian capture.

I’ll (sic) must read and re-read your comment to absorb it further, and to follow up on your references. On these particular issues, you are light years ahead of me. I’ve a lot of catching up to do . . .